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MIAMI — A woman is suing Florida jail employees after she said they forced her to spend hours in a cell with 40 men because staff thought she was transgender or a man. The Miami Herald reported that Fior Pichardo de Veloz was in Miami in 2013 to see the birth of her grandchild. She was arrested on an old drug charge she said she didn’t know was outstanding. She says jailers with the Miami-Dade County Corrections Department booked her in a cell for 10 hours with men.

WFLA reported that Pichardo was listed as female by the arresting officer. She was strip-searched and booked into Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center and processed as a woman. Because of her history of high blood pressure, Pichardo was taken to the facility’s medical unit. The Herald reported that the nurse noted Pichardo was taking hormone pills and asked if she was man. Pichardo said no, but the nurse wrote, “Transgender, male parts, female tendencies.”

“Every reasonable prison officer and medical personnel would have known that wrongfully misclassifying a biological female as a male inmate and placing that female in the male population of a detention facility was unlawful,” Judge Frank Hull wrote in a Nov. 21 appeals court opinion. The opinion allows Pichardo, now 55, to pursue a trial against Dr. Fredesvindo Rodriguez-Garcia and nurse Fatu Kamara Harris.

The court opinion said the doctor reclassified Pichardo as male without an exam. She was then transferred to the all-male jail Metro West Detention Center, where she was placed in a cell with about 40 men for 10 hours. . . .

The real issue here is why are they placing trans women in jails for cis men to prey on.

Exactly! It is, of course utterly inept on the part of the jail employees. And clear professional negligence on the part of the doctor and nurse who classified a cis-female as trans on the basis of . . . no evidence whatsoever. So I hope this lady wins a ton of money in her lawsuit!

But the bigger issue is that the policies of the jail apparently call for a trans-woman to simply be locked up in a cell with 40 men? What ignoramus came up with THAT idea?

I live in Miami and our local law enforcement officers are well known for occasional disgraceful behavior.

I wish to remind everyone of the armed LEO at Stoneman Douglas High School who waited outside the building for 5 full minutes, while a shooter was inside killing dozens of unarmed student teenagers. This school is just north of here in Broward County. This officer is referred to as the Broward Coward by many people here.

Then again, we have many LEO who have showed great courage in arresting violent criminals and getting involved in rescue efforts. For all LEO, courage, compassion and common sense are occupational requirements.

I live in Miami and our local law enforcement officers are well known for occasional disgraceful behavior.

I wish to remind everyone of the armed LEO at Stoneman Douglas High School who waited outside the building for 5 full minutes, while a shooter was inside killing dozens of unarmed student teenagers. This school is just north of here in Broward County. This officer is referred to as the Broward Coward by many people here.

Then again, we have many LEO who have showed great courage in arresting violent criminals and getting involved in rescue efforts. For all LEO, courage, compassion and common sense are occupational requirements.

This might be changing in the future! it also can have been this homophobic doctor and the nurse, because she was originally booked right!

It's a really disjointed read. The O/P's text says booked as a man, but her initial booking was as a woman. The thread title says cisgender woman, but according to a nurse she has male parts and is carrying hormones. Later a doctor is blamed. I think the reporting could have been better.

Yeah, hard to know what really happened here - what the facts really are. However, I am really disappointed in the medical care as reported that she received and the alleged attitudes/actions of the nurse and physician. All people expect empathy, compassion, understanding, and competent care from health professionals. Unfortunately, many times personal beliefs, poor training, poor attitude, and cultural differences enter into the care ALL people receive. It can be frustrating on so many levels...and sometimes downright dangerous.

The fact that this treatment is OK for trans women, after being certified by a doctor and a nurse, is incredibly disturbing.

That the public is upset that a cis woman was incorrectly treated as trans through the medical negligence is very frustrating. The common feeling is that this treatment is OK or correct for trans women.

Knowing that this jail is hardly unique, and the exact same treatment is done in my own county for all arrested trans persons is just depressing.

Yes, trans women if read as such will go into holding on the men’s side, in the holding ‘area’, a big cell, where the deputies will diligently check on their welfare every two hours on the dot and otherwise ignore them.

I am very fearful of arrest, as I have previous experience being gang-raped, a horrific experience that I never want to repeat.

In my experience, sadly enough, last year I was routed directly to the solitary medical unit.

Hicksville Omaha, Nebraska did a better job

p.s. I need to add that during the booking process there was actually a male/female/transgender option. I was embarrassed when I had to strip search and the guard yelled out that there is a problem. And another responded that they already declared. To which the other officer said that it would have been nice if someone would have said something.

Do trans women also get jailed with men after bottom surgery? How about after a legal name and gender change?

I just can't imagine this, if it would happen to me. after all there are enough horny men out there that would drool about a chick with a dick! After all that is the largest growth element in the porn industry!

Logged

When you are dead, you don't know that you are dead; the same applies when you are stupid!

Do trans women also get jailed with men after bottom surgery? How about after a legal name and gender change?

This is left to the jail operators (sheriff or police dept) in many jurisdictions. The law here states that persons should be jailed as appropriate for prisoner safety. The county sheriff, who runs the holding facility for all police departments in my county, determines this. How it is determined is up to the local authorities.

In this case they found estradiol in the woman’s purse. Trans women are known to take estradiol, therefor the woman must be trans! Real life imitating Monty Python? No physical exam was attempted, including by the nurse and doctor, and the results of such an exam can be ignored by the jailing authority.

This is left to the jail operators (sheriff or police dept) in many jurisdictions. The law here states that persons should be jailed as appropriate for prisoner safety. The county sheriff, who runs the holding facility for all police departments in my county, determines this. How it is determined is up to the local authorities.

In this case they found estradiol in the woman’s purse. Trans women are known to take estradiol, therefor the woman must be trans! Real life imitating Monty Python? No physical exam was attempted, including by the nurse and doctor, and the results of such an exam can be ignored by the jailing authority.

I read elsewhere that the nurse's comments were along the lines of:

"During the examination, everything fell out. Definitely a man."

Now the treatment she received wasn't ideal. But if this is a transgender woman, on hormones and tucking, then reporting her as a cisgender woman is just downright confusing.

Now the treatment she received wasn't ideal. But if this is a transgender woman, on hormones and tucking, then reporting her as a cisgender woman is just downright confusing.

I’m pretty sure a transgender woman in a holding cell with 40 men is not going to be any safer than a cisgender woman in a cell with 40 men.

I am also pretty sure that putting any woman, whether cisgender or transgender, in a holding cell with 40 men is not ideal.

‘Manly’ men, ‘real heterosexual men’, will rape men who appear less masculine than they are, just as they might rape a cisgender woman. Holding cells are not as well supervised in many facilities as folks might think. In my county, for example, holding cells are checked every two hours on the two hour mark, and people in holding are often aware of this.

Some of the reporting may appear confusing because of the conflicting statements being put out by both the police department and their employees involved in the case, as there is a bit of a fuss over this and folks in the department do not appear to have their stories all together.

Whether cisgender or transgender, the officers operating this holding facility placed this woman at risk.

Even though Harris, the nurse, was not in the exam room, she inexplicably told the jail officer that the exam had revealed “everything fell out” — meaning, Pichardo’s supposed male genitals had been discovered. Officer Morman protested, even calling her supervisor.

The actual Appeals Court opinion as filed, granting Pichardo the right to proceed with litigation:http://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/unpub/files/201713059.pdfSee the Factual Background starting on Page 3. Note that these are undisputed facts, entered as background, to support the appeal petition. This provides considerable clarifying detail.